Windows, doors and Mimic STL Downloads! Also a short assembly and painting guide :)

Hi Guys!

I was planning on releasing these at the start of August, but as they're all ready now and this is the first batch I don't see any reason to hold back :)

These were EXPENSIVE to get made (all detailed STLs are) but the artist had to be fairly paid!

I absolutely couldn't afford to do this on my own, and future releases are really dependent on how much support the channel gets at the noble patron tier to pay artists fairly ongoing for STLs like this -

WITHOUT that money coming from patrons who don't 3d print, whose money I want to make sure gets spent on videos and universally accessible rewards primarily.

This is why I've kept most of the STLs (aside from some basics) to the noble tiers, and the questgiver tier without (with most of the funding for the STLs coming from the noble tiers)

Which I thought was the fairest balance I could find right now...and I really hope I haven't upset anyone with this, it was a difficult decision to make :(

If your patreon email is the same as your Myminifactory email then you will get access on there at the start of next month. I grab lists of patrons a few times in the month, every 10 days or so with a few on the last days, so make sure you stay subscribed for long enough to hit the database! I need that data to give you access 🙂

Aside from that, as part of the release of these awesome new STLs to make our lives easier, I've put together a short tutorial with all the little tips I've used when putting these together myself. This isn't an in depth tutorial, and wasn't complex enough to justify the immense time investment of a video, but judging by comments when I announced it I'm hoping it'll be useful to plenty of you :)

Printing

All these pieces come pre-supported, and theoretically can even be scaled up to 75mm to use in dioramas at that scale!

There's one main thing to bear in mind with these when printing, and that’s the windows. I've included two variants of the diamond shape leading, one thick and one thin. The thin version printed fine for me with only a little warping that was easily fixed a) by the final curing and b) by gluing it to flat transparent plastic.

However I'm very aware of the sheer variety of printers and resins, so I've included a thicker version in case you just can't get the thin ones to stay intact - I do recommend removing the supports before final curing, using hot water and ideally, an xacto knife. These parts are delicate, it's the price we pay for the detailed scale.

The doors, sills etc on the other hand you can dunk in hot water and peel as usual for the most part! Just take care with the basic door's handle. It's supported, and it's worth getting that support removed before all the others.

Assembly

Windows:

Again, the windows need the most care here, though it is pretty simple! All you need to do (once you've cleaned up any leftover supports if needed) is cut some transparent plastic packaging or overhead projector sheet (OHP sheet) to slightly less than a 3/4" square.

Then apply some superglue around the edge of one side, and spread a thin amount across the diamond pattern using a cocktail stick, before placing the plastic. I found it best to line this up along the bottom first, and hold it there firmly, letting the rest fall into place exactly.

Sills:

The sills are pretty simple, just add nickel strip to the square beneath. The main change here is you need to cut an extra 1/4" 'brick' layer out from any stone window tiles you have, to accommodate the brick. This is usually along the line of a piece of wire if using my updated walls, and you'll see the sills have small gaps designed to clip over them exactly.



*note - this is a prototype, the nickel strip gap will be MUCH thinner!

However, they will only do this if you cut along the wire carefully with an xacto knife from both sides, so there's no foam on top of the wires, and then flatten (either by cutting or squashing) the foam between the wires so its about 1mm lower that the wires themselves (basically so it lines up with the brick layer below). Then you can melt a hole and add a 3x2mm magnet (if desired).



Finally, the little brick you cut out can be glued to the bottom of the original stone brick filler you cut out, so you can disguise the window as a wall whenever you like (all my walls are also windows!)

Doors:

The doors work exactly the same as the balsa wood doors I show in the updated magnetic walls bonus video, with wire down one side. I generally find two layers of wire are best on all these. On the basic and fancy door, I keep the first wire lined up just to the edge of the 'hinges' on the back of the door, and the second wire further in, closer to the middle, before blending the two with some cheap medium viscosity superglue. A good trick here is to paint them black, then do a layer of superglue over it, which acts as a hell of a varnish…





on the thicker doors, the first wire fits neatly in the slot, and the second wire can be glued to it (sticking out the back slightly).










Both these methods allows the doors to open fully more easily :)

Painting

This is mainly a little guide for those who want one, it's nothing special really but I often get asked about colours and such.

The wood got painted in two ways, rich and grey. These were both a base layer, a drybrush of a highlight colour, and a more gentle drybrush of a further highlight colour, focused in the more open areas.

Rich wood

Vallejo Chocolate brown basecoat

GW Steel legion drab drybrush

GW Steel legion 3:1 vallejo pale sand light drybrush

Grey wood

2:4:1 GW mech standard grey/steel legion drab/vallejo black basecoat

1:2 GW mech standard grey/steel legion drab drybrush

The metal on the reinforced door was simply painted vallejo black.

I gave the whole lot a coat of AK ultramatte varnish through an airbrush (brush would do) and gently rubbed the black bits with my finger, which gives it an easy slight highlight due to the varnish!



Iron doors

These were pretty basic, I basecoated in vallejo metal colour steel, and gave them an black/brown oil wash with 4:1 black:burnt sienna.

I found on this scale, with the recessed areas being this shallow, rubbing the oils off again could quite easily remove all shading from the piece, even if left until dry (if not fully cured). To avoid losing the really nice shading I just poked any harsh edges with a small old brush to blend the shading into the middle of the big open diamond areas.

You can use a flat sponge to remove the shading from the raised iron banding if you're careful, but I found it pretty much always removes any shading on the rivets too, so for the second side I didn't bother.

I sealed it all in with a coat of vallejo metal varnish through the airbrush.

I had planned to add streaking grime streaking down a little from the rivets, but didn't have time…maybe in the future!



Stone doors

These were simply painted exactly as the stone walls were, with the exact same craft paint! It turned out pretty damn well :)

Mimic

The mimic I did a test scheme for on a draft version of the mini (less texture), but didn't really have time to do properly on the final version….yet!

The 'door' sections I painted as grey wood/the reinforced door. I glazed a vallejo royal purple and black mix to blend the wood/black and mimic flesh, and then gave the main flesh a royal purple and black basecoat.

I highlighted that with pure royal purple, and drybrushed the scales/back texture and tongue. I blended the tongue into 50/50 medium blue/royal purple at the tip with a glaze, before again drybrushing the blue tip of the tongue with the medium blue/royal blue mix, with a drop of ice blue to lighten it.

The Slug bit at the bottom I experimented painting pro acryl olive flesh, then a 50/50 mix of army painter strong/darktone wash. It looked pretty good as a slug colour, but I might go with a brighter purple or blend down to blue again in the final version…

Finally the Eyes I basecoated in GW averland sunset and highlighted with GW yriel yellow, with no pupils (I wanted an abberation/otherworldly creepy look)

I also added gloss varnish to all the 'wet bits' and in the final version, I plan to add saliva using UV resin and uhu glue :)



I hope that helps any of you who struggle with finding the right colours or methods for things, or just want to mirror what I did as closely as possible :)

I can't want to see what you guys make with these! 😁